Tour de France 2012: Allez, allez!

It’s been a dominant performance by Wiggins and Team Sky, emphasised by his stamping his authority on this year’s race with a second stage win in yesterday’s 53.5km individual time trial. That result, 1 minute 16 seconds ahead of his second-placed team-mate, the Kenyan-born British rider, Chris Froome, silenced the critics who had speculated that Froome, who will finish second overall, was the stronger rider. Not this year.

Placed second in the opening time-trial by just 7 seconds behind perennial prologue winner Fabian Cancellara, Wiggins weathered the first week of sprint finishes and crashes which saw 20 riders withdraw with broken bones – just as Wiggins had done last year. During that first week, Manx missile Mark Cavendish, also now on Team Sky, grabbed his 21st stage victory in Tournais.

On the 7th Stage, 199km from Tomblaine to a mountain-top finish at La Planche des Belles Filles, Sky demonstrated their strength in depth on the final climb – dropping potential race challengers along the way, with the exception of last year’s winner Cadel Evans and Vincenzo Nibali. Chris Froome took his first stage win, Evans was second, but third-placed Wiggins lost no time to the duo and took over the maillot jaune.

Overall, Sky riders have won 5 stages so far. Wiggins two, Froome one, and Mark Cavendish two. His second came in a thrilling peloton chase and catch of a small group, including Irish rider Nicolas Roche, within sight of the line on stage 18. And Cavendish has his sights on a historic fourth win on the Champs-Élysées in four years. The possibility exists of current world champion Cavendish being led out on the final sprint by the yellow jerseyed Wiggins.

Last year’s hero Tomas Voeckler takes the polka-dot jersey as King of the Mountains. Peter Sagan, in his first Tour, has the green points jersey. Nicolas Roche, son of Ireland’s only Tour de France winner Stephen, will finish in 12th place overall.

I have been following the toor addictively since stage 4. In that time, I have gained a bit of an insight about the sport.

A cyclist cannot win the Tour without a team working with him. Sky Pro cycling and its team of riders also deserves a lot of praise, despite the misgivings of some. The have put together a team that has raised the bar in sports management and professionalism. They look set to dominate the sport for years to come.

That is to take nothing away from Wiggins’ feat. He is a supremely gifted athlete. He has worked exceptionally hard. He has followed the best advice there is and he has used the team resources intelligently. He deserves all the accolades and honours coming his way.

Zig70

The whole British cycling team storming ahead of everyone else and now on the professional circuit. Bit of a Ben Johnson moment? Cycling is continual dogged with claims that it is the chemists who are the real talent.

In terms of hitting the high spots with the British public, no disrespect to Froome, but Wiggins is the better name to be the first Briton to win the Tour.

However, I think Team Sky are professional enough to choose the best man to try and win the Tour and I would expect them to do the same next year.

It will be the 100th edition of the Tour and I don’t think Team Sky would definitely put Wiggins in to defend his title if the course doesn’t suit him as much as Froome. Team Sky are professional enough to go with the best man.

This year the race organisers opted for longer individual time trial stages and cut out some of the big mountain climbs, going for shorter, steeper climbs in the hope of making the race as fair as possible for all the potential winners.

It hasn’t worked but the organisers could not account for how strong Team Sky were going to be or know they would dominate the race in the way they did.

It is a great personal achievement for the man and I don’t understand why you would try to put him down. If you can’t say anything good……

Rory Carr

“Being born in a stable does not make one a horse”

“Bit of a one trick pony if you ask me.”

Seems like a couple of punters (lacking imagination as well as direction) have strayed in from a post mortem on the King George VI at Ascot on Saturday.

Republic of Connaught

Well done to Bradley Wiggins. Can’t say I’m a Tour De France fan for many years.

“Have Ireland nobody to follow in Stephen Roche’s name in the Tour De France in the near future?”

I think this is the problem for sport across all of Ireland, Dwatch.

We try to dip our feet in too many waters. How can we have top class footballers, rugby players, golfers, jockeys, athletes, boxers etc. along with the Gaelic and Hurling teams on an island of over 6m. England can barely do it with 50m plus.

Methinks I am more sinned against than sinning. Consider instead if I had dismissed a more established global superstar say Usain Bolt as “only a one trick pony” you just might have recognised the attempt at humour but in your zeal to repel any perceived diminution of Bradley’s achievements and right an apparent injustice, you chose to get on your high horses. About par for Norn Iron and Slugger but on this occasion you backed the wrong horses.

So citizens I ask again “Just what else has he done?”

Rory Carr

“While we are on the subject of where people were born, wasn’t St Patrick a Welshman?”

Well, the thing is, we don’t really know, so we leave it to people’s own prejudices to decide where he may have been born.

It’s a bit like when a nurse asks,

“…and when where you born?”

I invariably reply,

“I don’t know. I was only a wee baby at the time. Better ask me mammy.”

the future’s bright, the future’s orange

‘So citizens I ask again “Just what else has he done?”’ for anyone who can’t successfully google wiki:

He currently rides for Team Sky. His career began on the track, where he specialised in the pursuit and madison disciplines, and has gradually moved towards road racing. Wiggins won a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics, three further medals at the 2004 Summer Olympics, and two golds at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Wiggins’ haul of six Olympic medals, which includes three gold medals, make him the sixth most successful British Olympian and is the most bemedalled British Olympian alongside Steve Redgrave with six medals.[2] In road cycling he turned professional in 2002, but his involvement was limited by his track cycling until 2007. After the 2008 Olympics, Wiggins took a break from the track to focus on the road. Initially viewed as a time-trial specialist and a rouleur, Wiggins showed his ability in stage races when he came in fourth at the 2009 Tour de France, then the joint highest placed finish by a British rider in Tour history. In 2010 he was hired as the leader for the new Team Sky, and won the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia. Wiggins’ first major stage race victory came at Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011. Wiggins finished 3rd in the 2011 Vuelta a España, becoming one of three British riders to make the podium in a Grand Tour. Ten days later, Wiggins won the silver medal in the time trial at the 2011 UCI Road World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2012, Wiggins demonstrated excellent form to win the 2012 Paris–Nice, the 2012 Tour de Romandie, and retained his Critérium du Dauphiné title, before becoming the first British rider to win the Tour de France.